Seriously, I'm considering writing an HN filtering proxy that ignores these kinds of magazine pieces. I just don't have time to read them properly, even if they

Seriously, I'm considering writing an HN filtering proxy that ignores these kinds of magazine pieces. I just don't have time to read them properly, even if they are interesting enough that I inevitably get drawn into some of them. That's just another factor in HN becoming a time-sink instead of a productive source of useful news. I suspect if we had the ability to downvote submissions as well as upvote, less of them would hit the front page in the first place, but I can't be certain. As for this article, the writing is OK, but I honestly wonder sometimes if these authors are being paid by the word. Take the first paragraph for instance. Replace it entirely with, "It was a dark and stormy night". Did that make the article better, worse, or no different? Had the same information been conveyed in far fewer words, I wouldn't have had to skim over parts and would have got a lot more out of it. There's definitely a place for articles like this, but I don't think HN is that place.